Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du Mal)

Beauty entwined with sin. Dark reflections on the soul. Can poetry reveal the hidden struggles of human desire and despair?

In Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du Mal), Charles Baudelaire examines the complex and often dark facets of human experience, from longing and decadence to despair and transcendence. This groundbreaking collection captures the contradictions of beauty and corruption, illuminating Parisian society and Baudelaire's personal struggles with striking, symbolic language. A cornerstone of modern poetry, Baudelaire's work challenges readers to confront the allure of the forbidden and the depths of the human soul.

Charles Pierre Baudelaire (April 9, 1821 - August 31, 1867) was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the 19th century. Baudelaire's highly original style of prose-poetry influenced a whole generation of poets including Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud and Stephane Mallarme among many others. He is credited with coining the term "modernity" (modernite) to designate the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis, and the responsibility art has to capture that experience.